Elector Of Bavaria Maximilian Iii Joseph

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Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire and Duke of Bavaria from 1745 to 1777. Maximilian was the eldest son of Holy Roman Emperor Karl VII and his wife, Maria Amalia of Austria, daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I. Upon his father's death in January 1745, he inherited a country in the process of being invaded by Austrian armies. Maximilian Joseph tried, as far as possible, to keep Bavaria out of the wars. Apart from militia troops, he sent only a small force of 4,000 men to join the Austrian army. In 1758/1759 (only a year and half into the war), he withdrew Bavarian auxiliary troops from Austrian service. Together with the Wittelsbach Elector Charles Theodore of the Palatinate he enforced the neutrality of the Empire during the conflict. Maximilian Joseph was a progressive and enlightened ruler who did much to improve the development of his country. He encouraged agriculture, industry, and exploitation of the mineral wealth of the country, and abolished the Jesuit censorship of the press. On 30 December 1777, aged 50, he died from a particularly virulent strain of smallpox, called "purple small pox" at the time. Link to Wikipedia biography